A designated series of parameters (i.e., water-content properties) in geotechnical engineering used for identifying, describing, and classifying fine-grained soils and clays or loams used for (ceramic) coarse ware. These parameters, which originally included six “limits of consistency” (the upper limit of viscous flow, the liquid limit, the sticky limit, the cohesion limit, the plastic limit and the shrinkage limit) are now typically limited to the “liquid limit”, the “plastic limit” and, sometimes, the “shrinkage limit”. Atterberg limits are determined on the basis of mass of water per mass of the dry soil solid by specific test methods, as standardized by ASTM Standard D4318 – 05 or other standard tests, and expressed in percent.
See Mitchell (1993).
See also activity, consistency number, liquid limit, plastic limit, plasticity index, shrinkage limit